Archive for category Life in Japan
January 9, 2006 part 1 – Second hand fraternity shirts and pachinko
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, Visitors on January 13, 2016
Disclaimer: UPS is the nickname of one of my friends visiting Japan. This post has nothing to do with United Parcel Service.
My friend UPS was visiting from Canada. After spending the day in Tokyo yesterday and planning on spending tomorrow in Tokyo and are, we decided to stay around Numazu today.
We walked from my apartment towards Numazu station. Our first stop was a used clothing store, where we were surprised to find several fraternity T-shirts and hoodies. I met UPS when I joined Delta Upsilon fraternity in 2002, and we were taught that wearing clothing with our fraternity letters was a privilege and a responsibility. For us it was strange to see that other groups lettered shirts, which would have been so valuable to us, had ended up in a used clothing store half way around the world. We bought as many as we could find as a gift for our fellow DUs.
We worked our way over to the Nakamise shopping area, which is also the home to my NOVA branch. Just down the street from NOVA is a giant pachinko parlour. UPS wanted to experience as much of Japanese culture as possible during his 4 day trip, so we walked in to play some pachinko.
I have only played pachinko once or twice before. I never really knew what was going on, but I did enjoy the noisy, flashy environment inside the pachinko parlour; once you pass through the doors it’s total sensory overload. We sat down at side by side machines, put in our money, and then used the lever to shoot little metal balls through the board towards a little hole. A nearby Japanese man tried to give us some pointers on how to use the machine. It didn’t help me, but UPS seemed to do a little better.
Gambling for money is largely illegal in Japan. The loophole with pachinko is that you win more metal balls which you exchange for a prize. You can then sell your prize for money in a nearby prize exchange booth.
UPS decided to cash in his metal balls, and found he had enough for an energy drink. He decided that instead of exchanging the energy drink for a small amount of money that he would just drink it instead. Re-energized, we went to find a place for lunch while discussing what kind of mischief might be possible with a bunch of fraternity t-shirts.
January 4, 2006 – Last day of holidays
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan on January 5, 2016
Today is my last day of the New Years Holidays. I spent the day relaxing and mentally preparing myself to go back to work.
January 2, 2006 part 2 – Japan in a wheelchair
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, The Penpal on January 3, 2016
Today I spent some time hanging out with The Penpal and some of her friends from NICE (Numazu Association for International Communications and Exchanges). We went to karaoke together in the afternoon which was memorable for two reasons: there was no drinking, and I learned how challenging it could be in Japan for someone in a wheelchair. Since these are two very different themes, I am going to make them into separate posts.
Japan in a wheelchair
One of The Penpal’s friends was a young Japanese man in a wheelchair. I had never really considered it before, but there are a lot of challenges to having a wheelchair in Japan. There are good facilities in large businesses and train stations for people in wheelchairs – elevators and accessible bathrooms for example, however there are a lot of places with narrow aisles, minuscule elevators, tiny washrooms, and lots of stairs. There are some older places that would be difficult or impossible to navigate in a wheelchair, and I can’t imagine what life would be like in a mountain town like Atami where steep streets make bicycle travel only possible for diehard cyclists.
The karaoke place we went to had three steps from the entrance area to the karaoke rooms. There was no elevator or ramp, so the group of us worked together to help move the wheelchair up the stairs. A chair and passenger can be a lot heavier than you would expect! The entrance door to the karaoke room was also just barely wider than the chair, which made getting in a bit difficult.
Japan is not completely inaccessible to wheelchairs, but the experience is very different from Canada where basically everywhere is required by law to provide accessibility.
If you are planning to travel to Japan in a wheelchair, there are some good resources online to help you get around. Check out Japan Accessible at www.japan-accessible.com. You can also find an interesting personal story on lonely planet here.
January 2, 2006 part 1 – Karaoke without beer!?
Posted by Barniferous in Karaoke, Life in Japan, The Penpal on January 2, 2016
Today I spent some time hanging out with The Penpal and some of her friends from NICE (Numazu Association for International Communications and Exchanges). We went to karaoke together in the afternoon which was memorable for two reasons: there was no drinking, and I learned how challenging it could be in Japan for someone in a wheelchair. Since these are two very different themes, I am going to make them into separate posts.
Karaoke without beer
I have lost track of how many times I have been to karaoke since coming to Japan almost two and a half years ago. Karaoke in Japan is great – there are private rooms to sing with your friends, there is a phone on the wall to order food and drinks, and alcohol is usually cheap and plentiful. I rarely touch a microphone without having at least one or two drinks. Most of the time I go to karaoke with other English teachers at the end of a late shift. Today I was out with The Penpal’s friends in the afternoon, and nobody was ordering drinks.
Don’t get me wrong – it is both possible to do karaoke without alcohol, and possible to have fun. However, when you sing sober, you become aware of how terrible your singing actually is. I am not a great singer, but this never usually stops me. Today however, I avoided a lot of my regular songs with notes that are outside of my one octave range. I also was a lot less theatrical; no dancing around or striking rockstar style microphone poses. In addition, I did not pick up the spare microphone to duet on songs that I didn’t really know well.
Overall, it was a very different experience than usual, but I still had fun and got to spend some time with The Penpal and her friends. After singing we all went out for yakiniku, which is a great way to end any day.
January 1, 2006 – Part of the family
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, The Penpal on January 1, 2016
Happy New Year!
Today I went to Mishima Taisha with The Penpal and her parents. The weather was beautiful; sunny and 10 degrees ABOVE zero. Usually in Winnipeg it would be sunny and somewhere around minus 20.
As usual, the shrine was completely packed with people going to pray for good luck in the upcoming year. As a rule, Japanese people are not religious, but they do regularly visit Shinto shrines for big events, likely more out of tradition than religious obligation. We worked our way through the crowd up to the front of the shrine, dodging flying coins from people who didn’t have the patience to get all the way to the front. As I clapped to get the attention of the gods of the shrine, I decided that 2006 was going to be MY year.
After surviving the crowds, we returned to The Penpal’s house. The Penpal and her mother went into the kitchen to prepare dinner, while The Penpal’s father and I watched TV and talked. I got some good Japanese practice, and felt like I was part of the family, which was pretty great.
December 31, 2005 part 2 – Hungover computer teacher
Posted by Barniferous in Azeroth, Drinking, Friends and coworkers, Life in Japan, Uncategorized on December 31, 2015
I woke up on on uncomfortable futon, feeling like death. My mouth was dry, my head was pounding, and I was sweating. I looked over and saw Okonomi still sleeping like the dead. I sat up and waiting for the room to stop spinning, but it merely slowed down. This was the penance for an epic night out that had us returning to Okonomi’s apartment around 6:00am.
In addition to going out for drinks, Okonomi had wanted me to come and visit to teacher her how to use her new computer. I gulped down several glasses of water before starting up the PC and checking it out. My first step was to delete some unneeded software that seems to be installed on all new machines, and then to make sure that everything was updated.
After about an hour, Okonomi rolled out of bed like she was a zombie rising from a grave. We realized that we both needed some food and fluids. She got dressed and we walked outside into the blazing horrible daylight. Okonomi’s apartment was half way up a hill, with a small grocery store near the bottom. We walked carefully down the bright, loud, gently spinning hill, picked out some bread, onigiri, and sports drinks, and then lurched back up the hill to the comfortable, dark apartment.
We rode out the hangover exploring her new computer. I taught her how to burn CDs and how to use bittorrent software. It was a nice relaxing afternoon after a crazy night out.
I returned to Numazu in the early evening, fell asleep for a few hours, and woke up to watch New Year’s Eve TV shows with Azeroth and one of his friends. Since I had enjoyed myself too much the night before, this turned out to be one of my quietest New Year’s Eves ever.
Happy New Year!
December 30, 2005 – A night out in Noborito
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Friends and coworkers, Hello House on December 29, 2015
I hadn’t been back to Noborito for a while, and was looking forward to catching up with Okonomi and the rest of the Hello House people who were still around. Okonomi had recently moved to an apartment near Shin-Yurigaoka station, and had promised me a place to crash for the night. I packed up my Canada flag backpack and was on my way.
Okonomi and I met at Shin-Yuri station, where I stashed my bag in a coin locker. I have become a huge fan of station lockers in my time in Japan. It was great not to have to carry my stuff around for the evening. After that, we took the Odakyu line to Noborito, paid a quick visit to Hello House, and then went for dinner. Naturally we had Okonomiyaki and a few beers.
(Author’s note: If you are going to Japan, eat Okonomiyaki – it’s amazing)
While living in the area Okonomi had made some Japanese friends in the neighbourhood, including the owners of an “antique shop and bar”. I had walked by this interesting combination of businesses regularly, but had never thought to go in. The two of us hung out for a bit and had a few drinks with the owner and his wife. Our next stop was a small bar with karaoke. After a few drinks we were surprised to see the owners of the antique shop come in after closing for the evening. We took this as a sign that we were going to be best friends, and proceeded to karaoke our lungs out.
I had been out for beer and karaoke many, MANY times during the year I lived in Kawasaki. Like most English teachers, I had stayed to the safe, welcoming environments of the big chain izakayas and karaoke rooms. The Noborito area is full of small character bars which I had walked by many times, but I had never thought to try any of them. Okonomi was one of those intrepid explorers who decided to jump into life in Japan with both feet, and had done her best to improve her language and hang out with locals instead of exclusively with teachers.
We left karaoke sometime around 3:00am and started looking for our next venue. I followed along to about 3 different bars that I had never heard of before, but due to the busy pre-new year season, everything was still full. At this point, Okonomi asked me if I had ever been to a hostess bar before. That’s when the evening took an interesting turn.
(continued)
December 25, 2005 part 2 – Drunk Christmas Skype
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Life in Japan on December 26, 2015
Earlier in the evening I spent a few hours at my coworkers Christmas party, enjoying a few festive beverages. I excused myself early to walk home in order to have a video chat with my family. I may have consumed slightly more festive beverages than I imagined, because the walk home was longer and more challenging than usual. As I weaved my way through the streets of Numazu with a big smile on my face, I sent an email to my family to let them know I was going to be a few minutes late.
At the start of December I mailed Christmas presents back to Canada, and had just received some presents from Canada. Since I couldn’t be home for Christmas, my family and I decided that we would use the magic of technology to open presents together on a video call. Japan is in a very different time zone than Winnipeg, so I was enjoying the last few hours of Christmas Day while my family had just finished their breakfast on Christmas morning.
I warned my family that I had just returned from a Christmas party, and did my best to appear sober on the camera. If you have ever seen a drunk person intentionally trying to appear sober you will have some idea of how well that worked (not very). I don’t think I did anything too embarrassing, and I was wearing pants the entire time.
Being home for Christmas to open presents with my family would have been great, but being able to spend some time with them and open presents together on camera was a reasonable substitute. Merry Christmas to all!
December 25, 2005 part 1 – Apartment Christmas Party
Posted by Barniferous in Friends and coworkers, Life in Japan, The Penpal on December 25, 2015
MERRY CHRISTMAS! In the evening The Penpal and I went to a Christmas party hosted in one of the NOVA apartments.
Most of the teachers who taught in Numazu, Mishima, and Fuji all lived in one apartment building just north of Numazu station. My apartment was the only company apartment in a different location – it is about a 15 minute walk away from the rest of the teachers.
The Penpal and I had been together for over a year and a half now, but it wasn’t very often that she got to spend time with my coworkers. The party was a great chance for her to meet everyone, and for my coworkers to realize that I hadn’t simply invented the girlfriend I keep talking about.
The Penpal picked me up in her car and we drove together and parked near the apartment building where my coworkers lived. When we got to the apartment, the first thing we noticed was a narrow entrance way completely full of shoes. Japanese people don’t often entertain at home, and its really uncommon to have 20 people in a small 3 bedroom apartment. I introduced The Penpal to my coworkers and the Japanese branch staff. She wasn’t able to stay long, but it was a fun visit for both of us.
When The Penpal had to leave, I walked her to the car, and then returned to enjoy some Christmas cheer with everyone else. Christmas at home with family is great, however, an international pot luck Christmas dinner with way too many people jammed into a small apartment is not a bad substitute.
December 24, 2005 – Christmas songs at the izakaya
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Friends and coworkers, Life in Japan, Uncategorized on December 24, 2015
Everyone finished work early because it was Christmas Eve, so we all went out to the izakaya across the street from NOVA to celebrate. Despite being located directly across from the NOVA branch, teachers rarely went to this particular izakaya, opting instead for the cheaper options. English teachers are notoriously frugal with their beer money.
We all had lots of food and possibly a few too many drinks, prompting a very boisterous round of Christmas songs as we approached midnight. We got so loud that the staff asked us nicely to keep the volume down. We took this as a cue to move to karaoke.
Being away from home for Christmas is hard. Being around a bunch of other people who are trying to forget they are also away from home for Christmas does make things easier.
Merry Christmas from Japan!
Drinking in Japan 
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